Adobe Target vs. Google Analytics

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Adobe Target
Score 7.5 out of 10
N/A
Adobe Test and Target is an A/B, multi-variate testing platform which Adobe acquired as part of the Omniture platform in 2009. It is now part of the Adobe Marketing Cloud. It offers tight integration with Adobe analytics and content management products.N/A
Google Analytics
Score 8.3 out of 10
N/A
Google Analytics is perhaps the best-known web analytics product and, as a free product, it has massive adoption. Although it lacks some enterprise-level features compared to its competitors in the space, the launch of the paid Google Analytics Premium edition seems likely to close the gap.
$0
per month
Pricing
Adobe TargetGoogle Analytics
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
Google Analytics 360
150,000
per year
Google Analytics
Free
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Adobe TargetGoogle Analytics
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoYes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Adobe TargetGoogle Analytics
Considered Both Products
Adobe Target
Chose Adobe Target
Previously, we had the opportunity to work with some similar services and to be honest we had a disastrous experience because they were not what we were looking for, but since Adobe Target was implemented it has proven to be a highly professional service for our company.
Chose Adobe Target
I have used Optimizely for A/B testing. Optimizely makes it easier to set up almost any type of testing experiment. Optimizely is also strongly recommended for a limited number of users and when you want to optimize the cost. Optimizely was selected over Adobe Target since the …
Chose Adobe Target
I have not used another product like Adobe Target.
Google Analytics
Chose Google Analytics
Universal GA is free to use, offers a good amount of data, and is relatively easy to use. Other products may not offer the detail needed (Google Tag Manager), or require payment (Adobe Target)
Chose Google Analytics
I've spoken pretty extensively already about how Adobe Analytics and Google Analytics compare, but again it's not really close between the two tools. Again, there may be some use cases where GA makes more sense (primarily if you are trying to cut down on the expenses of the …
Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
Adobe TargetGoogle Analytics
Testing and Experimentation
Comparison of Testing and Experimentation features of Product A and Product B
Adobe Target
8.1
9 Ratings
6% below category average
Google Analytics
-
Ratings
a/b experiment testing8.59 Ratings00 Ratings
Split URL testing8.28 Ratings00 Ratings
Multivariate testing8.28 Ratings00 Ratings
Multi-page/funnel testing7.36 Ratings00 Ratings
Cross-browser testing8.65 Ratings00 Ratings
Mobile app testing8.65 Ratings00 Ratings
Test significance7.69 Ratings00 Ratings
Visual / WYSIWYG editor7.78 Ratings00 Ratings
Advanced code editor8.07 Ratings00 Ratings
Page surveys7.84 Ratings00 Ratings
Visitor recordings8.24 Ratings00 Ratings
Preview mode8.28 Ratings00 Ratings
Test duration calculator8.18 Ratings00 Ratings
Experiment scheduler8.19 Ratings00 Ratings
Experiment workflow and approval7.96 Ratings00 Ratings
Dynamic experiment activation7.84 Ratings00 Ratings
Client-side tests8.57 Ratings00 Ratings
Server-side tests7.74 Ratings00 Ratings
Mutually exclusive tests8.28 Ratings00 Ratings
Audience Segmentation & Targeting
Comparison of Audience Segmentation & Targeting features of Product A and Product B
Adobe Target
8.4
9 Ratings
5% below category average
Google Analytics
-
Ratings
Standard visitor segmentation8.69 Ratings00 Ratings
Behavioral visitor segmentation8.28 Ratings00 Ratings
Traffic allocation control8.69 Ratings00 Ratings
Website personalization8.18 Ratings00 Ratings
Results and Analysis
Comparison of Results and Analysis features of Product A and Product B
Adobe Target
8.1
9 Ratings
5% below category average
Google Analytics
-
Ratings
Heatmap tool8.24 Ratings00 Ratings
Click analytics7.37 Ratings00 Ratings
Scroll maps7.84 Ratings00 Ratings
Form fill analysis8.74 Ratings00 Ratings
Conversion tracking8.28 Ratings00 Ratings
Goal tracking8.28 Ratings00 Ratings
Test reporting8.59 Ratings00 Ratings
Results segmentation8.28 Ratings00 Ratings
CSV export7.37 Ratings00 Ratings
Experiments results dashboard8.49 Ratings00 Ratings
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Adobe TargetGoogle Analytics
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Score 8.7 out of 10
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User Ratings
Adobe TargetGoogle Analytics
Likelihood to Recommend
6.8
(36 ratings)
9.0
(183 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
6.3
(24 ratings)
9.0
(51 ratings)
Usability
1.1
(4 ratings)
9.9
(8 ratings)
Availability
6.1
(4 ratings)
10.0
(4 ratings)
Performance
8.0
(3 ratings)
10.0
(2 ratings)
Support Rating
3.5
(9 ratings)
7.0
(42 ratings)
In-Person Training
8.1
(3 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Online Training
6.1
(3 ratings)
10.0
(2 ratings)
Implementation Rating
7.2
(5 ratings)
9.0
(7 ratings)
Configurability
-
(0 ratings)
6.0
(2 ratings)
Ease of integration
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Product Scalability
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(2 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
-
(0 ratings)
9.0
(1 ratings)
User Testimonials
Adobe TargetGoogle Analytics
Likelihood to Recommend
Adobe
If you're using the Adobe stack and tools to power your website, Target is a great solution to implement. I've utilized Target within two organizations, one running on Adobe Experience Manager (AEM), and the other on Adobe Magento. I don't see how companies could harness the full capacity of Target without also having Adobe Analytics integrated. This is their 'secret sauce' and might not be a good solution for companies who are invested in Google Analytics 360. Integration was straightforward but did require support from the Adobe team to implement successfully. While Target is a great tool for digital teams to support, you'll need your tech team aligned and available to support implementation.
Read full review
Google
Google Analytics is particularly well suited for tracking and analyzing customer behavior on a grocery e-commerce platform. It provides a wealth of information about customer behavior, including what products are most popular, what pages are visited the most, and where customers are coming from. This information can help the platform optimize its website for better customer engagement and conversion rates. However, Google Analytics may not be the best tool for more advanced, granular analysis of customer behavior, such as tracking individual customer journeys or understanding customer motivations. In these cases, it may be more appropriate to use additional tools or solutions that provide deeper insights into customer behavior.
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Pros
Adobe
  • This application gives us an incredible integration with Adobe Analytics that allows its operation to be the best and determine the performance of our website.
  • It offers us an analysis based on user behavior and a web page customization option to adapt and meet the needs of those users.
Read full review
Google
  • Multiple reports to see website use and behavior
  • Allows you to customize reports with days, weeks, months, and years
  • You can build out a dashboard to easily view stats from multiple websites in one place
  • You can share analytics reports via the dashboard, automatically emailed PDFs or in other formats
Read full review
Cons
Adobe
  • This is something a lot of testing tools struggle with, but I think the WYSIWYG ("What you see is what you get") editor - or Visual Experience Composer (VEC) in Adobe terminology - could definitely use some work. It's a struggle to execute many tests beyond simple copy, color, placement changes, and even the features that do exist are often clunky if not altogether broken.
  • The interface itself can be a bit counterintuitive in certain parts. If you are familiar with other tools, it's likely middle of the road in this respect; think much easier to understand than Monetate for instance, but a far cry from the simplicity of an Optimizely.
  • It can be a bit buggy from time to time. The worst example is the frequency at which the tool will fail to save due to an error, but not inform you of this until you try to save, at which point your only option is to log out, log back in, and make all of your updates once again. It can become an extreme pain point at times, and I personally have just gotten into the habit of saving every couple of minutes to avoid a massive loss of productivity.
Read full review
Google
  • Data sampling is somewhat inaccurate on the free tier - this is addressed in premium but is expensive.
  • Some of the UI is very similar in naming when presenting different data, some in-situ information might be useful.
  • Gotchas around filtering and data validation.
  • Implementation can be tricky, it can take a lot of time and expertise to get a full, accurate picture of your metrics.
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Likelihood to Renew
Adobe
We have a team of people trained on how to use the application and it integrates well with the other Adobe products we use. Our future roadmap of testing will require some complex scenarios which we hope Target will be able to accomplish
Read full review
Google
We will continue to use Google Analytics for several reasons. It is free, which is a huge selling point. It houses all of our ecommerce stores' data, and though it can't account for refunds or fraud orders, gives us and our clients directional, real time information on individual and group store performance.
Read full review
Usability
Adobe
Can be difficult to learn, but once you understand Mboxes and the nuances of the system it's very user friendly
Read full review
Google
Google Analytics provides a wealth of data, down to minute levels. That is it's greatest detriment: find the right information when you need it can be a cumbersome task. You are able to create shortcuts, however, so it can mitigate some of this problem. Google is continually refining Analytics, so I do not doubt there will be improvements
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Reliability and Availability
Adobe
i don't think we use the full functionalities of the tool, but to use the full functions, it's almost impossible (Too hard)
Read full review
Google
We all know Google is at top when it comes to availability. We have never faced any such instances where I can suggest otherwise. All you need is a Google account, a device and internet connection to use this super powerful tool for reporting and visualising your site data, traffic, events, etc. that too in real time.
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Performance
Adobe
The bottleneck is never the software program
Read full review
Google
This has been a catalyst for improving our site's traffic handling capabilities. We were able to identify exit% from our sites through it and we used recommendations to handle and implement the same in our sites. We have been increasing the usage of Google Analytics in our sites and never had any performance related issues if we used Analytics
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Support Rating
Adobe
On several occasions, we have had the need to ask for help from the Adobe Target support team, and I must say that they have provided us with an excellent experience, as they take care of solving the problems quickly and with high precision
Read full review
Google
The Google reps respond very quickly. However, sometimes they can overly call you to set up an apportionment. I'm very proficient and sometimes when I talk to reps, they give beginner tutorials and insights that are a waste of time. I wish Google would understand my level of expertise and assign me to a rep (long-term) that doesn't have to walk me through the basics.
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In-Person Training
Adobe
The instructor that came to train us was awesome and this training was very useful. I would recommend it for anyone who is going to be using this software. I only mark it lower because it is an added expense to an already expensive product, and a lot of the training covered the "Target" portion of the software (which again, we didn't use)
Read full review
Google
No answers on this topic
Online Training
Adobe
The training was very easy to understand, however it would have been more useful to my development team than me. It was also primarily over-the-phone, which is never as easy to follow as in-person. We ended up scheduling and paying for an in-person training session to supplement the online/phone training because it wasn't helpful enough.
Read full review
Google
love the product and training they provide for businesses of all sizes. The following list of links will help you get started with Google Analytics from setup to understanding what data is being presented by Google Analytics.
  1. How to Use Google Analytics for Beginners – Mahalo’s how-to guide for beginners.
  2. A beginner’s guide to Google Analytics – A free eBook walking you through Google Analytics from setup to understanding what data is being presented.
  3. Getting to Know Your Google Analytics Dashboard – The title says it all! This is a brief post with one goal: to introduce you to the Google Analytics dashboard.
  4. Google Analytics for Beginners: How to Make the Most of Your Traffic Reports– This guide doesn’t cover setup, but it does a great job of helping you to better understand the data being presented.
  5. Google Analytics Video Tutorial 1: Setup – A video presentation that walks you through Google Analytics setup.
  6. Google Analytics Video Tutorial 2: Essential Stats – A video presentation that introduces you to some of the most important data being presented in Google Analytics.
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Implementation Rating
Adobe
Implement using a global mBox on the page so you can change any and everything over the traditional method. Traditional method is good if you do not have technical web dev resources, do not know Javascript/jQuery, or you have money to blow on mBox calls. Global deployment reduces mBox calls and allows you to touch many parts of the page easily. A lot more customizable
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Google
I think my biggest take away from the Google Analytics implementation was that there needs to be a clear understanding of what you want to achieve and how you want to achieve it before you start. Originally the analytics were added to track visitors, but as we became more savvy with the product, we began adding more and more functionality, and defining guidelines as we went along. While not detrimental to our success, this lack of an overarching goal resulted in some minor setbacks in implementation and the collection of some messy data that is unusable.
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Alternatives Considered
Adobe
We seriously considered another software but because we use so many other Adobe products this made the most sense for us. If you are not dependent on other Adobe software and are a smaller company, in my opinion, Target may not be the best fit.
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Google
I have not used Adobe Analytics as much, but I know they offer something called customer journey analytics, which we are evaluating now. I have used Semrush, and I find them much better than Google Analytics. I feel a fairly nontechnical person could learn Semrush in about a month. They also offer features like competitive analysis (on content, keywords, traffic, etc.), which is very useful. If you have to choose one among Semrush and Google Analytics, I would say go for Semrush.
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Scalability
Adobe
No answers on this topic
Google
Google Analytics is currently handling the reporting and tracking of near about 80 sites in our project. And I am not talking about the sites from different projects. They may have way more accounts than that. Never ever felt a performance issue from Google's end while generating or customising reports or tracking custom events or creating custom dimensions
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Return on Investment
Adobe
  • We have been able to run specific A/B tests that have shown an increase in conversion, which in turn has led to very large banked sales numbers for the year.
  • We have been able to prove that using and automated Merchandising process did not decrease conversion. This allowed us to greatly increase efficiency by opening up resource time.
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Google
  • It has helped us gain understanding of what is going on on our website.
  • It has helped us determine areas that need fixing (i.e. pages with extremely high bounce rates may need to be redone).
  • It has helped us understand our biggest avenues for bringing traffic to the website and business in general.
  • It has helped guide our website redesign.
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ScreenShots